Microsoft's Internet Explorer has a bit of a brand identity issue on its hands. Because of decisions made many, many years ago, Internet Explorer 6 has left a sour taste in the mouths of developers and consumers. Even some of the older iterations like IE7 and 8 are still loathed by consumers but later iterations like IE10 and 11 have fared much better in terms of providing a positive web browsing experience.

During an AMA that took place today on Reddit, the team was asked if they had ever considered rebranding the browser to escape the negative perception left behind by earlier versions of the browser. While Microsoft, at first, joked about renaming, they did say that they actually considered it. In fact, they revealed that there was a "particularly long email thread" talking about the change but the final decision was to keep the name in place.

Internet Explorer, for better or worse, has tons of consumer brand equity and that is not easy to achieve. Of course, Microsoft could easily establish a new brand identity with a new browser because of their ability to bundle it with Windows but that does not matter as the IE name is here to stay.

Obviously, many things get talked about internally that never make it outside the walls of Redmond. Even though IE may not have the best brand reputation at this time, it does appear to be improving and with enough time, IE may eventually regain the consumer confidence it desires - and that it needs if it is to keep up with Chrome and Firefox.